Hi! Welcome to “Dusty Phrases.” You will find below an ancient phrase in one language or another, along with its English translation. You may also find the power to inspire your friends or provoke dread among your enemies.
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Latin:
Ordo Amoris
English:
Order of Love
This many centuries old Latin phrase recently became a point of political contention within the United States when Vice President J.D. Vance referred to it in relation to how human beings should arrange their concerns, making the argument that his political opponents operate in an inversion of Ordo Amoris.
[Note: As Latin is the language of the intellectual foundation of the West, it is still relevant and arguments like this prove it.]
What does this mean? Why is St. Thomas Aquinas being discussed by mainstream news agencies in 2025? Let’s find out:
via classicallyhomeschooling.com
Ordo Amoris: The right order of affections
Have you read Circe Institute’s Principles of Classical Education? It runs through the various principles upon which a classical education is founded. And the second principle is that of ordo amoris or order of affections, but what exactly is ordo amoris?
Why is it important?
To quote C.S. Lewis,
St Augustine defines virtue as ordo amoris, the ordinate condition of the affections in which every object is accorded that kind of degree of love which is appropriate to it. Aristotle says that the aim of education is to make the pupil like and dislike what he ought. When the age for reflective thought comes, the pupil who has been thus trained in ordinate affections or ‘just sentiments’ will easily find the first principles in Ethics; but to the corrupt man they will never be visible at all and he can make no progress in that science. Plato before him had said the same. The little human animal will not at first have the right responses. It must be trained to feel pleasure, liking, disgust, and hatred at those things which really are pleasant, likeable, disgusting and hateful. ~ C.S. Lewis
The Right Order of Affections
Ordo amoris, or the order of affections, is the order of priorities we have: what is most important and what is least important. This isn’t to say a given item is bad, but that it’s not as high in our affection (or priority list) as something else.
For instance, I think it would be fair to say, we all like having money. Money buys food for our family, clothing, trips to the movies, and education for our children.
However, money is not at the top of our order of affections. If it was, we’d all be thieves and criminals. No. We hold following the law as a greater order of affection than having money.
Following the law isn’t at the top of our order of affection though. As my children and I were discussing modern history last year, we debated human rights versus the law. Is following the law a higher order of affection than the rights people have to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness?
No, sometimes we are called to break the law because human rights have a greater order of affection.
Why do we place human rights so high? I know for myself it comes down to the call to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. Which comes from a love of God.
While Aristotle speaks of the aim of education is making the pupil like and dislike what he ought. We want to teach our children to hate evil and love good, to detest wrong, and to adore right.
Ordo amoris leads directly to the purpose of classical education which is to teach our children wisdom and virtue. Ordo amoris gives us a method of doing so.
We teach our children to love what is right and good. We teach them to hate what is wrong and evil. And we read stories of good versus evil to our children. We fill their heads with fairy tales teaching right from wrong.
As the children get older, we use history and literature to discuss value systems. We compare the characters of historical figures and how events were affected by these men and women.
We discuss why people behaved the way they did, and how people should have behaved. How would we behave in a similar situation?
Ultimately ordo amoris teaches our children how to choose between what is good and what is better.
That is the overview. The idea is one of priority, with that roughly meaning your priority should be based on proximity and those things over which you have some measure of control or responsibility – starting with your family, then expand to your neighbor, then your community, then your state, then your country, then people around the world. The argument would thus be that caring most about things over which one has no control is antithetical to relational design and is less fruitful – with your energy being less well-used on those things and causing damage to those things locally which would have otherwise benefited from your energy and affection. Further, the things being overlooked locally are your individiual responsibility.
Why is this controversial? We live in a political divide, around the world, wherein about half of the people prioritize global issues first (climate change, global financial issues, global war-fighting, etc.) and make Christian-themed arguments to defend those priorities. They have done so successfully without much significant opposition for decades. Thus, Vance citing Aquinas on such a large platform caused a stir. Vance threatens to shake up a long-held bloc of support. Some have since argued that “Ordo Amoris” is heretical while others made public arguments defending Vance’s position.
Compact Magazine published an article covering the political kerfuffel, which is worth reading. I’ll spoil it and say that they side with Vance, but it also gives voice to the other side in a very balanced way, too.
There’s been a dustup over love. No, I’m not talking about Taylor and Travis, who seem to be doing swimmingly. It’s JD Vance. The vice president was being interviewed by Fox, and he made a straightforward observation: There is an order or hierarchy of loves—what is classically called an ordo amoris. We should love our family first, then our neighbors, then love our community, then our country, and only then consider the interests of the rest of the world. Vance called this a Christian view.
Some reacted with horror. To be Christian is to be universal and impartial, they said! Vance is endorsing an anti-Christian nativism! But Vance is correct. The Christian tradition has a consistent teaching that we are to love those near with a greater fervor than those far away.
In his discussion of the virtue of love, Thomas Aquinas addresses the key question: Should we love one man more than another? At first glance, a love-universalism rings true. Consider this mode of deduction: In his love, God offers salvation to all the world. We are called to imitate God. Therefore, we must love everyone and seek to promote their wellbeing.
Aquinas does not dispute the conclusion. Yes, Christianity teaches that we must love widely. Jesus reiterates the great commandment to love our neighbors as ourselves, and he goes on to clarify that “our neighbor” includes those outside our families, communities, and nations. (That’s the gravamen of the parable of the Good Samaritan.) But Aquinas refines the conclusion, concluding that we should not love all things in the same way and to the same degree.
For example, we should love good food and good company. But surely there are higher goods that we should love to a greater degree. If getting invited to the party requires you to dissemble or to pretend to hold views you know to be false, then you betray the higher love of truth for love of the far less important love of a good spread and congenial companionship.
Good health offers another example. It’s something to love, which means seeking it for ourselves, as well as for others. But health is not the highest good. As we discovered during the pandemic, to love physical wellbeing at the expense of spiritual goods such as companionship, to say nothing of worship, leads to a grave perversion of civic life.
Put simply, there is an ordo amoris, an order of love. We need to love the right things in the right way.
Aquinas applies the notion of ordo amoris to our love of other people. There is no question that all persons are equally worthy of our love. We are created in the image and likeness of God. But each of us is cast into a world of already existing relationships. These relationships bring with them duties and responsibilities.
Aquinas lays down a basic principle: “One’s obligation to love a person is proportionate to the gravity of the sin one commits in acting against this love.” Put differently, we’re to love with greater devotion those for whom we have greater responsibility.
Aquinas gives our relation to our parents as an example. We are obligated to honor our mother and father. It’s right there in the Ten Commandments. It follows, therefore, that a love of others that impedes or contradicts our proper love of our parents is misguided, even wrong. The same holds for children. Do we imagine that God calls us to love others in a fashion that leads us to neglect our obligations as parents? In Bleak House, Charles Dickens creates a character, Mrs. Jellyby, who exemplifies the perversion of love. She is devoted to philanthropic endeavors abroad while neglecting her own children.
Jesus tells us that we must be prepared to hate our mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters. It’s an apt warning, but it concerns our love of God, which must be the highest love, higher even than family. Woe unto him who substitutes “mankind” for God. His loves will be disordered, and like Mrs. Jellyby, he may well imagine that he should love mankind more than his wife and children.
Vance speaks of neighbors and communities. Here, too, the principle articulated by Aquinas applies. Neglecting the needs of someone in Syria by failing to make a donation to a relief organization may be sinful. (I emphasize may.) But standing by with indifference when one’s neighbor is in distress is likely a far graver sin. Let me put this in concrete terms: Christ-like love encourages concern for victims of fires in other states, regions, or countries. But all the more so does Christ-like love compel us to come to the aid of neighbors whose houses down the street are burning.
I suspect that most of Vance’s critics anguished over his forthright affirmation of our love of our fellow citizens. They fear “nativism,” or some other manifestation of xenophobia. But we should not let disordered loves discredit a proper order of loves.
Remember Aquinas’s principle—our obligation to love is proportionate to the sin committed in acting against that love. Treason is a grave crime. I cannot commit treason against China or any other nation than my own. Therefore (if you will permit me a moment of scholastic logic), we should love our own country more than any other country.
Love is jealous. I love my wife to the exclusion of others. The same holds for my country. But love is also fecund. A man who loves his wife with selfless devotion has prepared his heart to love his country and make sacrifices on behalf of his fellow citizens.
Vance is not undermining America’s concern for the other nations and peoples, for the same fecundity operates on the world stage. God forbid that our future rests in soulless technocracy and bloodless “best practices.” We need leaders who love others rather than manipulating or managing them, including those in far-flung lands. This love must be encouraged, trained, and deepened—which happens when we live in accord with a warm and unapologetic ordo amoris.
